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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23791792">Pretty Broken Baubles</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vjha/pseuds/Vjha'>Vjha</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Panther (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>By Blood, Erik Killmonger and T'Challa Are Not Related</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23791792</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vjha/pseuds/Vjha</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>T'Challa fell in love with Erik his summer vacationing in Japan before the second year of Oxford. Erik could never forget a certain Elijah whom he met the summer before joining the army.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Erik Killmonger/T'Challa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Start Reading</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pretty Broken Baubles</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, in my alternate universe version, T'Chaka's father adopts N'Jobu after N'Jobu's father dies when N'Jobu is a baby. N'Jobu was the son of a man who T'Chaka's father considered a brother. Everything else was still true. N'Jobu was still second in line for the throne, because in Wakanda, adopted kids are given the same exact rights in everything including inheritance as children of the same blood.</p>
<p>Constructive criticism is always appreciated.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong> The First Meeting </strong>
</p>
<p> "Ugly broken baubles. Would you look at that? The next thing they're going to do is rip up tissue paper, frame it, and call it art. Art my ass." Erik muttered under his breath. </p>
<p> "Not impressed?" </p>
<p> Erik turned around to look at the black man standing next to him. He looked like he was just out of his teens. It was unusual, encountering another black man in Japan. "You can't tell me you are impressed?"</p>
<p> "True, when I was thinking about good art, I wasn't thinking broken cat sculptures."</p>
<p> "Yeah, I can see where you might have been misled," Erik chuckled.  </p>
<p> "But you know," the man said with a glimmer in his brown eyes, "there is an art museum that is in walking distance of this one. It is not as popular, but it is certainly better. And instead of ugly broken baubles, it has pretty broken baubles."</p>
<p> Erik smirked, "Is that an offer to take me there?"</p>
<p> "Well, I certainly wouldn't be opposed. My name is Elijah. And yours is?"</p>
<p> "Erik."</p>
<p>
  <strong> Before he left </strong>
</p>
<p> He woke up with the sun's rays shining on him, and Erik's warm body beside him. T'Challa almost wished that he could start every morning like this. On mornings like these, T'Challa wished he was Elijah - an Oxford student on summer vacation - rather than T'Challa. Because then maybe he could have Erik. </p>
<p> It was not that his country would not let him marry who he wanted to. They would test Erik, but from what he had gathered, Erik would excel. Erik was a king already - a warrior king. And T'Challa was sure that Erik's stint in the military would only refine these qualities. </p>
<p> That is where the problem lay. Erik was dead-set on joining the military, and T'Challa - T'Challa knew how the bindings of being a royal chafed at him. He didn't imagine that Erik would take it well. </p>
<p> Sometimes T'Challa would wake up in the middle of the night to hear Erik whimpering in a nightmare. He would run his fingers against Erik's scalp till Erik was quiet, and the creases on his forehead had eased. T'Challa had come to realize Erik reveled in the fact that he could carve his own destiny. He wasn't sure what had happened in Erik's past, but T'Challa did not want to be the one to take that ability away.</p>
<p> Besides, T'Challa had a feeling that while he had fallen in deep, to Erik, this was just a summer fling. So, with a resolve to enjoy the time he had left, T'Challa turned his back to the sun, and cuddled the man he had fallen hopelessly in love with. Tomorrow, before Erik left, he would gift Erik the bracelet.</p>
<p>
  <strong> Finding out </strong>
</p>
<p> Erik was shocked when he found out that his Elijah, the Elijah whose memories had kept him sane in his darkest moment - the one who had made every relationship before or after him pale, was T'Challa, the son of that traitorous bastard who was his adopted uncle. </p>
<p> His heart drummed in his chest, and his hands clenched till little crescents of blood carved themself into his hands. </p>
<p> Had T'Challa known he was N'Jadaka? Had he found amusement in seducing Erik knowing that his father had killed N'Jobu?</p>
<p> No, Erik took a deep breath. It was likely that T'Challa had been just as oblivious as he was to their other connections. Regardless, it didn't matter anymore. And if Erik still treasured the bracelet T'Challa had given him - well, no one knew, and he would certainly not be acting on any of his emotions. After all, emotions only weakened him.</p>
<p>
  <strong> After Erik challenges T'Challa &amp; T'Challa wins </strong>
</p>
<p> "Would it make you feel better if I told you that it wasn't you?"</p>
<p> "Probably not."</p>
<p> "Then, why do you want me to coddle you?" Erik asked.</p>
<p> T'Challla looked away. "I did not ask for anything." </p>
<p> "You demand me to explain when you know me well enough to already know the truth."</p>
<p> "Maybe, you are right...but I had h-hoped," T'Challa's voice broke off.</p>
<p> "Hoped?" Erik said.</p>
<p> "Hoped that the gentle look in your eyes defined you more than the reputation you garnered."</p>
<p> Erik scoffed. "You mean the reputation I worked hard to garner."</p>
<p> "You know," T'challa quietly said, "I love my father, but there is one thing I can never forgive him for."</p>
<p> Erik - no, not Erik, not his college sweetheart - it was N'Jadaka, N'Jobu's son, who stared at him right now, silently prompting him to go on.</p>
<p> "He broke you - broke the person you could have been."</p>
<p> "Ha, even you think I am broken!" Erik said, his words bitter.</p>
<p> T'Challa leveled him an even look. " I knew you were broken, and cared for even the too-sharp pieces of you that made me bleed. I never wanted to change you."</p>
<p> Erik's mouth pulled up into a sneer. "Are you f*cking kidding me? You say you don't want to change me, but you block every move I make. That is you accepting me - what a joke."</p>
<p> "Do you remember what I gifted you before you left?"</p>
<p> "I remember."</p>
<p> "I guess you did not want to understand what I was trying to tell you," T'Challa wearily sighed.</p>
<p> "Regardless," T'Challla said pulling himself together, " in your anger at the world you will destroy others - innocents will be your collateral damage - and then yourself. And then what will you be - the hollow king of nothing? No, N'Jadaka, Erik, I will not see you destroyed."</p>
<p>
  <strong> The Bracelet </strong>
</p>
<p> Erik who had managed to sneak out from the room where he had been placed after his fight with T'Challa, stopped and concealed his presence at hearing Shuri's voice.</p>
<p> "Do you know, Mama," Shuri says to Ramonda, "that I found a betrothal bracelet in the Usurper's bag - one that matched T'Challa's? T'Challa still wears his...do you think..."</p>
<p> Ramonda's said in a quiet and urgent voice, "Perhaps, it is time to give the council's advice of finding a wife for T'Challa some thought. If the Usurper knows of T'Challa's attachment to him, surely he would use his influence on T'Challa to manipulate him. We must take care of things before it can get to that point."</p>
<p> Erik was stunned. His mind quickly calculated and reorganized his plans. Perhaps, he thought with a smile, the situation was easier to handle than he had originally assumed. Thinking about his new course of action, he quietly left.</p>
<p> Afterward, Shuri looked at Ramonda with a predator's wide grin, while Ramonda just smiled demurely.</p>
<p> "Men." Ramonda said, "they can only think of the most difficult way of doing things."</p>
<p> Shuri's grin impossibly widened, "You aren't scared of T'Challa being manipulated?"</p>
<p> "If I have taught my son anything," Ramonda said with a sly smile on her lips, "it is how to keep his consort happy, while getting exactly what he wants."</p>
<p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, stuff that didn't make it into the fic, but is still true. The pretty broken baubles Erik and T'Challa went to see in their first meeting was kintsukuroi. The betrothal bracelets are gold plated vibranium, with a kintsugi repaired black onyx in the middle.</p>
<p>Constructive criticism is always appreciated.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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